Facebook in Education

I was interviewed by a radio program today on the role of Facebook in education. My view: very little research has been conducted on whether the high communicative value of Facebook translates into academic value. Do students want educators to integrate Facebook into instructional activities? Or do students prefer to use these tools for more social purposes? As educators we are often drawn to tools in popular use, assuming we can co-opt them for academic purposes. “Oh look, everyone has a mobile phone/Facebook account/Second Life avatar…let’s use that for educational purposes”. InsideHigher Ed asks the key question: Will Colleges Friend Facebook?
In a related vein - the term creepy treehouse has acquired a fair bit of traction to draw attention to differences of intention in the use of popular technologies and processes for teaching/learning.